Hotline Says Classy 'skins Will Be Missed

Warner Hessler

Let's ease into summer by opening up The Hotline one more time. Questions don't have to be about football, but it would help.

Q: What's wrong with the Redskins?

A: Don't you ever sleep? Actually, there is something wrong. The dressing room is going to be a little colder place this season without such classy guys as Jeff Bostic, Mark Rypien, Art Monk, Earnest Byner and Danny Copeland around.

Q: Let's get off football for a minute. You never write anything about soccer. Do you even understand the game?

A: From the few games I've watched, here's how I think the game is played: If it moves, kick it. If it doesn't move, kick it until it does.

Q: I guess you're like the rest of the people who think soccer is boring. Are you?

A: I can't put down soccer for being boring after watching the New York Jets beat the Washington Redskins 3-0 last December. If you remember, the most exciting play in that game was the Jets' Roger Duffy hitting holder Louie Aguiar in the ear hole with a center snap. I mean, that was a soccer-style field-goal attempt.

Q: I don't want to talk about soccer or the Redskins. I'm from Baltimore and I want an NFL team. Do you think owner Georgia Frontiere will make a decision to move the Los Angeles Rams to Baltimore after the 1994 season?

A: I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for Georgia Frontiere to make a final decision on anything. Hey, this is a woman who went through seven husbands, and her team's media guide is usually the last one to reach the printer because she can't decide which picture to use with her overblown biography.

Q: Very funny, but do you think she'll leave Anaheim for Baltimore?

A: Yes. Well, maybe. But she's from St. Louis and could go there.

Q: I've read some opinions by out-of-town columnists who firmly believe Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Charlie Ward of Florida State wasn't drafted because he's black. Might there be a bit of truth to that?

A: Not a bit. At last glance, no white quarterback standing 5-foot-11 and weighing 185 pounds was drafted, either.

Q: What would you do to end the violence in basketball?

A: I'd fine a player $25,000, plus one game's salary, per punch.

Q: If you had an NFL expansion team, who would be your coach?

A: Steve Spurrier of Florida, but he's too innovative and imaginative to leave the college ranks for the pros.

Q: Do you think Joe Gibbs ever will coach again?

A: Sure. He'll be in Charlotte in 1995 coaching the expansion Carolina Panthers. Carolina doesn't have any players yet, so it doesn't need a coach right now. Wait until next January. That's when the ex-Redskins coach will come out of retirement. All of his former assistants currently employed have clauses saying they can get out of their contracts and join Gibbs if he takes the job.

Q: What would you do to clean up college sports and make it a game for true scholar-athletes?

A: I'd make a school deposit $50,000 with the NCAA for each athlete on scholarship. The school would get $50,000 back for each scholar-athlete who graduates. At that price, schools would think twice before hiring unqualified students for their basketball and football programs. Right now, college basketball and football have as much to do with education as bullfighting has to do with agriculture.

Q: What would happen to kids who have athletic ability but didn't think it was important to study in high school?

A: Start minor-league programs for both sports. It works for baseball and hockey.